Conventionally, when a wireless communication apparatus performs communication using Wi-Fi with another wireless communication apparatus (hereinafter referred to as “Wi-Fi communication”), the wireless communication apparatus performs authentication based on an authentication key which has been exchanged in advance. For example, PTL 1 discloses WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) carried out between a station (hereinafter referred to as “STA”) and an access point (hereinafter referred to as “AP”). “STA” and “AP” are roles of wireless communication apparatuses.
This WPA is also applicable to WiGig (Wireless Gigabit), which is the standard of wireless communication described in NPL 1. That is, a wireless communication apparatus executes WPA with another wireless communication apparatus and can thereby perform communication using WiGig (hereinafter referred to as “WiGig communication”). By using a wireless wave band of 60 GHz which belongs to millimeter waves, WiGig communication can transmit/receive a greater amount of data faster than Wi-Fi communication.
WiGig has the following features. In WiGig, the role of a wireless communication apparatus is “STA” and “PCP (Personal basic service set Central Point)” which is similar to the role of AP, but these are not fixed unlike Wi-Fi. Furthermore, the wireless communication apparatus can perform operations in a plurality of roles simultaneously (hereinafter referred to as “multirole”). In WiGig, STAs connected to the same PCP can also be directly connected to each other (hereinafter referred to as “STA-STA connection”). “Multirole” and “STA-STA connection” are examples of wireless communication capability held by wireless communication apparatuses.